Today's News

On July 8 the Shelby County Board of Education invited representatives from all the principal companies that built the Collins High School multipurpose athletic to come to the school and peel back the turf for a first look at why this year-old surface had developed soft spots that left it unusable.

Much to the surprise of many, the Shelbyville City Council did not discuss or have the second reading of the ordinance to annex property at the southwest corner of Harrington Mill and Freedom’s Way.

The second reading of the annexation of the 70-plus acre Ruble property and the railroad track land that is contiguous to it was removed from the agenda sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.

New Shelbyville City Attorney Steve Gregory said the agenda change was a precaution to make sure everything is as it should be.

The Shelby County Board of Education will get its first look at the 2012-13 draft budget at Thursday’s meeting at the district offices at 1155 Main Street.

A new board chair and vice chair will lead the meeting into always dicey budget discussions.

The current 2011-12 working budget shows the district having to cover more than $625,000 in Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) funding from the state. However, that number will not be fully known until the end of the school year.

If you are serious about being re-elected, the door of opportunity has been kicked as wide open as the Montana sky.

This isn’t about your ideas for handling our continuing economic morass, the ever-threatening swagger of Iran, the everlasting war on terror in Afghanistan and ever however much you think we should spend on the military going forward.

Those are important, impervious issues, to be sure, but they’re not your real opportunity.

It was important to learn last week that a grand jury in Shelby County found that two Shelbyville police officers showed proper judgment and had no recourse in their deadly confrontation with a teenager last fall.

We wish that the tragedy that spins around this horrible moment would have such a simple ending, but we don’t think it can.

We cling to the hope that the continuing debate also won’t have an equally tragic outcome.

A week after a Shelby County Grand Jury ruled that a Shelbyville Police officer was justified in shooting and killing a teen in his grandmother’s home, the investigation remains open.
Kentucky State Police Det. Ben Wolcott said last Tuesday after the hearing that he expected to wrap up the investigation into the shooting of 19-year-old Trey Williams by Shelbyville Police officer Suzanna Marcum by the end of the week, but he said yesterday that had not been done.

Shelby County’s community hospital now has new ownership, and we’re glad at least that piece of the drama about the facility’s future is complete.

We don’t know what impact OneKentucky Heath System ultimately will have in Shelby County – and we remain concerned about that – but at least the merger processes surrounding its future are signed and, for the time being, sealed.

Both are media spokespersons for high profile government offices, the governor and the attorney general, respectively.

Both are dedicated, driven professionals in their fields.

Both are also Shelby County residents.

Richardson, communications director for Gov. Steve Beshear, and Johnson, deputy communications director for Attorney General Jack Conway, say they have always gotten along well when their paths have crossed professionally from time to time.